Cal Maritime Wins Harbor Cup Again

The Cal Maritime Academy Keelhaulers outpointed the University of South Florida to bring home their sixth win in the 10-year history of the Harbor Cup after races were abandoned on Day 3 of the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Cup. Thick fog and light winds forced the cancellation on Sunday. College of Charleston won last year, but Cal Maritime won in 2011-2015. LAYC is the host club.

The intercollegiate regatta invites 10 of the top sailing teams from across the US. This year, Team Ireland debuted as the event’s first international team; they finished seventh overall. The Irish team captain, Marcus Ryan, said, "We heard about this event through Tyler Wolk [Cal Maritime’s coach, when we were competing against his very competitive American team at the Student Yachting World Cup in La Rochelle, France, last year." The sailors, recruited from neighboring colleges in Counties Cork and Mayo, looked forward to "the opportunity to sail in a region where heavy offshore sailing gear isn’t a requirement all year round."

Friday’s racing featured 8 knots of breeze building to 12 over the course of a hazy afternoon. With Cal Maritime over early in the second race, the University of South Florida topped the leaderboard at the end of the day. Thick fog delayed racing on Saturday until gusty winds of 10-15 knots cleared the course enough for sailing to start. Cal Maritime ended the day three points ahead of South Florida. One of our readers theorized that the Keelhaulers’ success in this keelboat regatta is "because they don’t have dinghies and only practice on big boats." A CMA dad disagreed: "Actually CMA dinghy/big boat teams are very active and made up of various combinations of the crews — very easy to look up at www.cmakeelhaulers.com/roster/0/10.php."